Welcome to the first Cooee Art MarketPlace Aboriginal Fine Art offering for 2019. Our June 4th multi-vendor auction features 105 lots including 36 works from the estate of collector and art enthusiast Mike Chandler. The estimated value is $750,000 - $1.4 million.

Mike Chandler was a close friend and client who patronised Cooee and other prominent galleries around Australia. For more than 2 decades Mike, and his delightful wife Barbie were welcome additions to any event or exhibition. Though Barbie’s death two years ago affected him deeply, he still made an effort to visit galleries, exhibitions and to champion Aboriginal art amongst his family and friends. We will miss him greatly. The paintings from his estate are offered as Lots 46 – 75 preceded by a short tribute. These artworks will be on display in our Bondi showroom with a special preview on Saturday 22nd May at 2pm.

Sale highlights include a highly significant early Papunya board by Johnny Scobie Tjapanangka (Lot No. 16) that has been returned to Australia from the US. Women’s Dreaming, 1972, 63 x 72.5 cm, estimated at $40,000 - 60,000, is believed to be the only painting that Scobie created during the Bardon years. An illustration of this work and accompanying notes including a copy of the original field note and drawing is reproduced in Geoffrey Bardon and James Bardon’s magnum opus on the origins of the Western Desert Painting Movement.* An even earlier Papunya board, Lot No.15, is a genuine sleeper. Created in 1971 it was just the fourth painting ever created by Johnny Warrangkula Tjupurrula and carries the very conservative estimate of $8,000 - 11,000.

Contemporary urban works by Lin Onus and Richard Bell stand out in this offering. Major works by Onus have been hotly contested in recent sales. Smaller works on illustration board are very tightly held by their owners as they are both beautiful and exceedingly rare. Gumurring Garkman, 1994 is a delightful image in Lin’s most successful style. Used as the template for one of Onus’s most enduringly popular fine art prints, this original work is estimated at $50,000 - 60,000 (Lot 21). A treasure awaiting any discriminating collector.

Richard Bell’s, A White Hero for Black Australia, presents one of the most iconic sporting images of all time in the artist’s signature graphic style. The subject is the medal ceremony for the 200-metres at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City. Peter Norman, Australia’s five-time national champion stands with African American athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos. More than just a compliant bystander, it was Norman who procured the Human Rights badges they wore, and Norman who suggested the black athletes share the same pair of gloves. The work measuring 100 x 150 cm is estimated $25,000 - 35,000 (Lot 20).

Set of 10 images depicting aspects of Old Texas - 1997

All 10 works bear catalogue number and artist's signature verso.
Image of the artist holding each artwork

Artworks 20 x 30 cm each : Frame 30 x 40 cm each

In this lovely set of 10 small works Queenie McKenzie has painted sites in the country of her childhood and early working life on Old Texas Station where the rocky hills are seen as separate forms on the edge of the desert plain. The sites depicted are Bililyerinbee, Buffalo Hole, Boonjoorji, Woolwoolji, Wooljing, Diamond Mine, Boolmowen, Top Country, Eagle Hawk Dreaming, and Eagle Hawk Hill.

'I bin born Old Texas, dat called Salt Pan country. Salt water you gotta drinkim'. No more goodfella water, all salt – bitter. I bin born la dat country.'*

Queenie spent her childhood and much of her adult life working as a goat herder and later as a cook in the mustering camps of Texas Downs. Cattle were mustered at the station and driven across to the abattoirs at Wyndham. The hills of Old Texas are a good place to collect the white quartz used for spearheads,

'Dat white stone from the hill, they break 'im up for spear. Good spear dat one.'*

She died in 1998, the year the Warmun art centre was formerly established. In an interview towards the end of her life she reminded us that the only word she had ever learnt to read and write was her own name, as it was required to sign her paintings. Yet she was, in her lifetime and is still to this day, recognised as a spiritual and cultural icon, whose commitment to art has left an indelible impact on Australian history and culture.

*Jennifer Joi Field, Witten in the Land, The Life Of Queenie McKenzie, Melbourne Books, 2008

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